American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett

by Buddy Levy

  Fresh from his whirlwind tour and feeling haggard but still quite full of himself, Crockett agreed to sit for a portrait by the painter John Gadsby Chapman. Crockett had lost one portrait previously, unfortunately leaving it on a steamboat, and the others he had sat for in the past few years had failed to impress him much, or, to his mind, capture his likeness in a convincing and—perhaps more important—memorable fashion. Crockett found the previous portraits too formal, making him appear, as he put it, like a “sort of cross between a clean-shirted member of Congress and a Methodist Preacher.”36 He decided he could help orchestrate the image, in effect becoming the costume designer and art director for the project, and Chapman gave Crockett full rein. Crockett launched enthusiastically into the work, thrilled by the collaborative possibilities: “We’ll make the picture between us,” he told Chapman, it would be “first rate.” Then epiphany hit Crockett like a flash of lightning in a hurricane—the best portrait for posterity, the one he wished to be remembered, was out hunting in a “harricane,” dressed in full leathers and regalia, with all his hunting gear, tools, long rifle, and a team of likely hounds. Such a scene would be destined to “make a picture better worth looking at.”37

  Crockett took the task of this image-making very seriously, searching out the best and most authentic props: leather leggings, a worn and faded linsey-woolsey hunting shirt, a battered powder horn, a hatchet or tomahawk, a butcher knife, and a pack of scurvy-looking dogs that appeared worn from the hunt. Finally, Crockett coordinated the pose itself, choosing one of action, the hunt about to begin: his felt hat in his right hand, the dogs dashing and yelping underfoot, one looking up expectantly for the word to go ahead, Crockett’s gun cradled confidently in the crook of his left arm.38 It was the Crockett his adoring public wanted to see, not a stuffy, clean-shirted member of Congress, not a fancy gentleman dressed for an evening of society, but a rough-and-ready backwoodsman, the man who had years before poked his inquisitive head out of the Tennessee canebrakes “to see what discoveries I could make among the white folks.” He had discovered much, not the least of which was the uncanny ability to participate in the making of his own mythology. The image would complement his book, and the publicity from the tour, quite nicely.

  Congressman David Crockett in full hunting regalia and with bear-hunting dogs, immortalized in the image he helped to create. (David Crockett. Portrait by John Gadsby Chapman, 1834. Oil on canvas. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin.)

  Between sittings, Crockett went through the motions of his congressional duties with an animosity toward Jackson that was reaching maniacal proportions and a bilious disdain for the entire governmental process. His verbal assaults now breached all sense of decorum, and on more than one occasion the Speaker of the House was forced to call the fuming Crockett to order.39 To make matters worse, the land bill, on which Crockett had hung practically his entire political reputation and life, was dead in the water. As the session drew near a close, on June 9 he scribbled an angry and disillusioned letter to William Hack, revealing that what little hope he had possessed now flagged. “We will adjourn on the 30 of June So I fear I will have a Bad Chance to get up my land Bill I have Been trying for some time and if I Could get it up I have no doubt of its passage.”40 He was right about that.

  He would be thwarted for the remainder of his term, until he remained nothing but a raging cipher in Congress. In late June he erupted, calling Jackson’s advisors

  a set of imps of famine, that are as hungry as the flies that we have read of in Aesop’s Fables, that came after the fox and sucked his blood . . . Let us all go home, and let the people live one year on glory, and it will bring them to their senses . . . Sir, the people will let him know that he is not the government. I hope to live to see better times.41

  He had unraveled completely. Seeing him leaving the Capitol for home one day, Chapman, who had been painting him for weeks, remarked that he appeared “very much fagged” (exhausted).42 Adding salt to his wounds were the growing criticisms of his absence from Congress for those weeks during the tour, which he attempted to salve by claiming chest pains. “I had been for some time,” he wrote in a lame defense, “labouring under a Complaint with a pain in my breast and I Concluded to take a travel a Couple of weeks for my health.”43 But no one was fooled, as his movements and appearances across the eastern seaboard had been widely published in the Niles Register and in many other papers across the country. His constituency began demanding answers, and without the passage of his vaunted land bill, he had nothing but excuses to offer them.

  Flabbergasted and clearly at his wits’ end, Crockett exclaimed, “I now look forward toward our adjournment with as much interest as ever did a poor convict in the penitentiary to see his last day come.”44 So anxious to escape his prison without bars was Crockett, he bolted even before the official adjournment of the session, determining to head back to Philadelphia to visit Carey & Hart, hawk a few more books along the way, pick up the rifle he had been fitted for, and surround himself once again in a cocoon of adulation, where his popularity knew no bounds.

  THIRTEEN

  “That Fickle, Flirting Goddess” Fame

  RIDING THE STAGECOACH from Washington to Baltimore, bound for Philadelphia once more, David Crockett had a lot on his mind. He was anxious, even thrilled, for the forthcoming festivities, which included hobnobbing with statesmen like Daniel Webster, with whom he would share the stage in a few days at a scheduled Independence Day fête for political speeches. As the coach jounced along and he looked out the window, he surely thought of home, his friends and family in Weakley County, which now seemed worlds away. And he would have been ambivalent about his return there. His relationship with Elizabeth had all but disintegrated, and while they remained civil, he rarely communicated with her directly. Now that he had been gone from home nearly a year, she qualified as estranged. Even worse, his eldest son John Wesley, who made him proud by following in his political footsteps, had recently given him pause. John Wesley had written to say that he’d undergone a full-fledged religious conversion. Perhaps remembering his own short-lived foray into sobriety and righteousness, Crockett scoffed at the news. “Thinks he’s off to Paradise on a streak of lightning,” he mumbled. “Pitches into me, pretty considerable.”1

  That, coupled with the burning questions of an unfulfilled and disgruntled constituency, kept Crockett traipsing around the East for the time being. And he could justify it with some legitimate business he had there, including a meeting with his publishers. The rifle that he’d been fitted for would be presented to him on July 1, and ahead of his visit he had sent a letter addressing some shooting specifications: “I am much pleased to see that she Bunches her Balls,” he wrote, no doubt daydreaming of the time when her shot would ring true on a bear or deer, but he added that some sighting adjustments were still necessary. “She shoots too low, but that will be altered by Raising the hind sight.”2 Crockett figured he could get a number of details taken care of, and he intended to pick up many tins of superior gunpowder, a variety not available in his county, to be packed in with a shipment of books he would retrieve at Carey & Hart’s.

  On the first of July, Crockett officially received the handcrafted weapon in a ceremony presided over by Mr. J. M. Sanderson. Crockett grinned as he accepted the gift, marveling at the workmanship and detail. On the barrel of the gun, by the sight, was inscribed his motto GO AHEAD; the stock was inlaid with a silver plate portraying a deer, an opossum, and an alligator, all lifelong quarry of the famed hunter.3 Into the muzzle the clever gunsmith had also inlaid a gold hunting arrow, conjuring Crockett’s time spent in Indian country. Along with the fine hand-hewn hunting rifle, Crockett received some tools and cleaning accessories, a shot pouch, a tomahawk, and an ornate liquor flask that would come in handy for taking horns with hunting compatriots. Crockett graciously accepted the haul, making a short speech in which he vowed to employ his newly dubbed “Pretty Betsey” in defense of his country if forced to, and to
pass it down to his able sons when the time came, and they would do the same.4

  The Fourth of July festivities upon him, Crockett rallied his spirits and perhaps a bit of his theatrical expertise to arrive in fine form, mingling and appearing with some of the nation’s significant figures, among them Daniel Webster, whom Ralph Waldo Emerson had recently heralded as “a true genius.”5 The staunch federalist Webster shared the vitriol that Crockett was expected to sling, though in his attacks on Jackson, Webster spoke with more refined cadence and elocution, with a kind of “majesty of oratory.”6 Crockett certainly understood that he was in the presence of true political greatness, but he was rarely intimidated, and the ceremony, the formality of the situation, would hardly have prevented him from being himself. Bolstered by senators Webster, Poindexter, Ewing, and others, Crockett took the stage and bellowed a thundering and inspired oration bewailing the tyranny of Jackson’s leadership, its despotism and danger.7 He underscored his own devout patriotism, his deep and unbending love of land and country, his fierce independence. It was vintage Crockett, even if many in the audience had heard it before.

  Crockett and the rest of the retinue were featured later that day, first at the Hermitage in the First District, and later at the Chestnut Street Theatre, both to large and appreciative audiences.8 Crockett apparently brought only one canned speech with him, or at any rate cared not to alter his first remarks much, and he set forth with much the same hackneyed address, though no one seemed to mind.

  The next day Crockett received a visit from a major captain of industry, the aging (and failing, for he would die later in the year) gunpowder maker Éleuthère Irénée Du Pont. The noted Du Pont was the first true chemical industrialist and a renowned businessman, and Crockett later acknowledged how pleased and awed he was at the visit: “He had been examining my fine gun, and . . . wished to make me a present of half a dozen canisters of his best sportsman’s powder. I thanked him, and he went off, and in a short time returned with a dozen, nicely boxed up and directed to me.”9 Crockett thanked him again, no doubt excited by now with the prospect of trying out Pretty Betsey, with its novel “cap and ball” firing mechanism, and the high-octane powder.10 He collected a few more gifts, including a fine imported China pitcher he intended to give to Elizabeth, and then rested for his journey home.

  It was finally time to head home, such as it was. He boarded a train and transected Pennsylvania heading for Pittsburgh, where he loaded a steamer aptly named the Hunter and chugged down the Ohio all the way to Wheeling, West Virginia.11 At the few stops along the route fans waited expectantly, hoping to see the famed “Lion of the West,” resplendent in his full hunting regalia. A newspaper account records what they actually saw when he consented to step out onto the deck and down a horn or two:

  He talked warmly on politics, and did not seem pleased with the Jackson men of Lancaster, for putting up a hickory pole. He went ‘ahead,’ after a delay of fifteen minutes, and leaving persons who expected to see a wild man of the woods, clothed in a hunting shirt and covered with hair, a good deal surprised at having viewed a respectable looking personage, dressed decently and wearing his locks much the fashion of our German farmers.12

  Some might have been disappointed to realize that the legend they’d come to see was a man after all. But they had witnessed David Crockett in the flesh, had seen that he was certainly no ordinary man, and those who did manage a glimpse of the star would tell their children of it, and their grandchildren, relating the sighting of him to anyone and everyone they knew.

  Crockett’s second son, William, met him on July 22 at Mill’s Point for the final thirty-five-mile horseback ride to Weakley County. The ride, the reunion with family, and the old familiar sights and smells of home would certainly have conjured mixed emotions in the national celebrity, and he had hardly dismounted and tied up his horse before the fallout from his eastern tour began to echo across the county, in the papers and through word-of-mouth gossip. Perhaps this lukewarm reception contributed to his short-lived stay at home, where he would linger less than three months. Already he was growing restless. His life had become routine, and routine never sat well with Crockett.

  In September, John Crockett, David’s father, died. He had followed his son’s westward travels and must certainly have been proud to see what his industrious boy had achieved. David was made administrator of the estate, which did not amount to much, and was definitely not enough to solve the younger Crockett’s perpetual money problem. David Crockett had the uncanny ability to always spend more than he had, and despite strong book sales, the status of a U.S. Congressman, international celebrity, and friends in the highest echelons of the U.S. government, industries, and financial circles, debt haunted him to the grave. He simply did not possess the ability to properly manage his own accounts.

  The bittersweet homecoming included dealing with some old debts, the marks for which had been called in, including one seven years old. A local judge threatened to sell Crockett’s property if he did not pay up. In early October he was so strapped that he was forced to sign a promissory note to one of his creditors, William Tucker, for $312.49, and he had outstanding notes at the bank under Nicholas Biddle. Though he hated to do it, Crockett was forced to write Biddle for an extension, saying “I know of no other way that I can do but that to pay you when I get to Washington I am more distressed . . . then anything in the world.” Always up-front about his money matters, Crockett added that he’d be leaving for Washington the first week of November, and “I expect to come through Philadelphia at which time I will see you and I will try and have matters arranged.”13 Crockett must have been confused and frustrated that all his efforts at making a name for himself, and the expense and time of his eastern tour, had yet to alleviate his financial woes.

  Again, it would get worse before it improved.

  Arriving in Philadelphia, Crockett sought a draw against royalties from Carey & Hart, hoping that book sales had been brisk enough to warrant the advance. They were unable to honor his request for $500. His pride bruised considerably, Crockett turned to Nicholas Biddle again. Biddle frequently loaned or backed the nation’s top politicians and businessmen with amounts much greater than the $500 Crockett needed, so he immediately agreed to the loan, helping Crockett settle his bill at the Nashville branch and offering to remove his name from the Protest Book, a generous gesture, since having one’s name registered under protest was the modern equivalent of a bad credit report, and such a personal blemish could be political fodder for enemies and opponents in the coming election.14

  Crockett was in dire need of cash. Having been denied an advance by his publishers, he knew he could not merely rely on the sales from the Narrative. He would need another source to supplement that and the eight dollars a day he received during the congressional session. Late in the autumn, Crockett had met with fellow boarder William Clark, a Pennsylvanian congressman, to discuss the possibility of writing up an account of his eastern tour and selling that as a stand-alone book. It made a lot of sense, would be relatively easy to collaborate on, and would serve the dual purpose of generating income on its own, plus rekindling sales of the Narrative. By the time Crockett reached Washington, his publishers Carey & Hart had agreed to publish the book about the tour, and Crockett finalized his agreement with Clark. Crockett’s job would be to provide notes, a few sketches and anecdotes, plus originals and newspaper accounts of his many speeches and the printed details of his tour to Clark, who in turn would edit and organize it all into book form.15 If they worked quickly and the book sold well, his financial woes might be alleviated. He was painfully aware of his predicament, having written Biddle a letter in mid-December thanking him for the assistance, and adding that the loan would “give me much relief and I hope will not be any disadvantage to the Bank I hope never again to be so hard pressed as I have said poverty is no crime but it is attended with many inconveniences.”16

  Spurred by the prospect of another money-making venture, Crockett tore into
his responsibilities on the new book with much more enthusiasm and attention than he gave his congressional duties, churning out more than forty pages of the manuscript in the first three weeks of the session. He delivered the bulk of these to Clark for editing, and Clark was initially optimistic about Crockett’s work, expressing confidence that he could turn the pages into a “most interesting book.”17 Encouraged and badly needing more money, Crockett wrote and compiled like a man possessed, contacting everyone he knew and asking them to provide him with newspaper articles of his speeches and notes on his travels, and he wrote with such vigor that he feared Clark would be unable to keep up with him.18 Clark busied himself with the revisions and with writing the preface, and Crockett expected that at this pace, they would complete the book by late January 1835. Clearly hoping his publishers would be confident in the quick delivery of the book, Crockett then asked them for an advance of $300, to take care of yet another debt, this one due in a matter of weeks. He was forever robbing Peter to pay Paul.